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336, 



THE MODERN COMEDY 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

AND OTHER POEMS 



O.'Rr HOWARD THOMSON 

n 

Author of 
"RESURGAM: POEMS AND LYRICS" 




THE CORNHILL COMPANY 
BOSTON 



Copyright 1918 
By the GORNHILL COMPANY 









©aA5();]773 

OCT -9 i9i8 



TO THE 
MEMORY OF MY FATHER 

2)r. 3(0lftt oTIfflmBnn 



Acknowledgment is made of the courtesy of "Contemporary 

Verse"; "Art and Progress"; "Pennsylvania Grit"; 

"The Williamsport Sun" and "The Williamsport 

Gazette and Bulletin" for permission to 

reprint poems that originally 

appeared in these 

publications. 



CONTENTS 





PAGE 


The Modem Comedy 


1 


In a Forest Clearing 


8 


Bergson: 




To Bergson 


.. 13 


Bergsonian 


.. 14 


"Creative Evolution" 


.. 15 


Christmas: 1916 


.. 19 


Summer Song 


.. 31 


Song 


.. 32 


Pictures: 




1. The Dune: Ogunquit, Maine 


.. 35 


2. Sleep 


.. 36 


Bankrupt 


.. 37 


Dirge 


.. 38 


Awake! 


.. 39 


To Phyllis 


.. 40 


To Phyllis in May Time . . 


.. 41 


The Spirit of Wine 


.. 42 


Magdalene 


.. 43 


Ave Ecclesiastical 


.. 44 


Laggard 


.. 45 


En Route: 




Setting Out 


.. 49 


In the Valley 


.. 50 


The Rise of the HUl 


.. 51 


Williamsport Poems: 




In WiUiamsport 


.. 55 


In Memoriam— (S. T. McC.) . . 


.. 61 


In Memoriam — (P. M. M.) 


.. 62 


"Go Forth!" 


.. 63 


To 


.. 64 



THE MODERN COMEDY 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

I 

The thing was monstrous! Never was a place 
So ill-attuned to tragedy. The sky was blue — 
Blue as the Virgin's mantle — and the dew 
Still sparkled on the palm-leaves; all the grace 
Of the world's youth, before the puzzled race 
Of man went mad, was on it; and the sea 
Kissed shore and shore kissed sea, as playfuUy 
As beech-trees' branches touch and interlace. 
Yet the vile thing was true! I saw him sprawled 
Upon the sands, a knife stuck in his breast; 
Dead at the spot to which he somehow crawled 
With all his young soul's anguish unconfessed: 
And overhead birds sang, the sky was blue — 
Blue as the Virgin's mantle — that is true! 

II 

Surely the gods who rule this world of ours 
Are sorry jests: their clumsy, big hands shake 
And mar the best of all the pots they make: 
Rank weeds o'er-run the places meant for flowers; 
And youth, that should know naught but shining hours, 
Toils amidst storms, till stumbling in the night 
Lost is the path that leadeth to the height 
Where stand effulgent the aerial towers. 
Thus dropped the dice for Harold, who now lay 
Dead in his beauty on the yellow sands; 
A youth, who went, as boys go to their play, 
Laughing, with eager, nervous, outstretched hands, 
To grasp Ufe's brimming, effervescing cup — 
Sad places those in which we sometimes sup! 

1 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

III 

The cuckoo sings in England when the May 
Whitens the hedges; grey owls bhnk their eyes; 
Young foxes venture forth and butterflies 
Are all a-search for clover. On such a day 
First dawned the world on Harold: a world at play, 
Compact of sunlight and the song of birds, 
Of running brooks, green willows, lowing herds 
And milkmaids singing in a leafy Avay. 
Joy was his birthright and he held it fast; 
Beauty, the stream in which he plunged his soul; 
Laughter he knew and all unseeing passed 
The yawning pits whose produce is but dole: 
True child of spring, his dower deathless youth, 
He had but smiled had he been told the truth. 

IV 

Life is a growth from little things to great. 
From seven pounds to twelve or thirteen stone. 
From consciousness of three drab things alone — 
Food, drink and warmth — to brain growth intricate 
And charged with passions; to youth at grips with fate, 
Wrestling with fortune, with face to fame addressed. 
Filled with vague longings, desires unexpressed — 
Tales of the springtime when the wild things mate. 
Some scour distant lands for soft-armed brides, 
A Jacob labors seven years for Leah, 
Though flowers sweeten English countrysides 
And Rosalinds, mayhap, bloom very near. 
Pluck I for the rose-bush will not bloom forever: 
Who stays his hand shall drink its perfume never. 

2 



THE MODERN COMEDY 



Rossetti's women wield a subtle charm 

Born of long throats, wide shoulders and full lips 

Through which, hke scent of lilacs, their breath shps 

Above their bosoms' never broken calm: 

They probe the gifts the gods give for our joy — 

Gifts we should take like bowls of gracious wine — 

Drear worshippers at introspection's shrine 

Missing the gold, they brood on its alloy. 

And Harold's love had their smooth, satin skin 

With Titian hair, late flower of a race 

Whose ancient blood began to run too thin 

For those who through the centuries held high place: 

Too thin for those whose horizons are wide 

And, light of heart, dispute the racing tide, 

VI 

Through the bearded barley where summer winds were 

blowing; 
Full knee-deep in clover, breast-high in the wheat; 
Laughing at Jack-rabbits that scuttled by their feet 
Where the scarlet poppies made so brave a showing: 
Under shady willows, by a broad stream flowing, 
Home of trout and grayUng rising after flies; 
Looking towards the moorland where the sunhght dies, 
Dies, but in the flushed-clouds lingers in its going. 
Words came very seldom, though their hearts were 

beating 
To the ancient love-song Nature sings so weU; 
Shoulder close to shoulder, heedless of the fleeting 
Of the magic moments born of twilight's speU: 

3 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

On they walked together, while the rooks were wheeling 
And the elm-tree's shadow ever farther steaUng. 

VII 

Ball-rooms are ball-rooms! Everything's on show — 

Fair throats, wrinkled necks, innocence and guile, 

Youth's wayward blush and forty's campaign smile — 

A single glance and all there is to know 

Stands naked in the glare. Yet youth would grow 

And change the wonder of its threshold dreams 

For adult facts: afar the future gleams 

So having packed their packs they up and go. 

Thus Harold must to Oxford and his books : 

And she to London, where an ancient dame 

Who knew three barons, kept at least two cooks 

And played a skilled hand in the social game. 

Should teach her things that girls must know today — 

Things that one hears in any modern play. 

VIII 

June came with matron charms and ripening wheat, 
Reluctant as a bride that men should see 
The proofs she bore of her fertility. 
So crowned her head with roses, dressed her feet 
With pink-tipped, big-eyed daisies, made her seat 
On clover blooms and flecked her ample skies 
With fleecy clouds, that like great butterflies 
Drifted untoihng in the noon-day heat. 
And they went walking, all their schooling done, 
Where golden shafts of light beneath the trees 

4 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

Sought out the hare-bells, whispering of the sun 
And braver flowers far beyond the seas. 
He was a-tremble, undaunted yet dismayed, 
And Pan went piping through the gathering shade. 

IX 

A fool had known just what the end must be; 

For they, although they breathed the self-same air, 

Were diverse as the Meredithan pair 

And doomed to shipwreck as assuredly. 

His plain, " I want you — will you marry me? " 

Lacked light and fire; kindled no cleansing blaze 

That had consumed the poison of the days 

Spent midst the prophets of modernity. 

No doubt she loved him — but she fain would preach. 

Talked glibly, in a flattened London voice, 

Of how true women must extend their reach ; 

Of female destiny and right of choice; 

Holy eugenics. — Admit that what she said 

Was true; Harold but flamed, blurted an oath and fled. 



Here were a chance to preach and moralize; 
To wag grave beards ; aver, that in these days 
The facts of life outweigh the lover's phrase 
And innocence went out with Paradise. 
Words, my dear sir, mere futile words! Our eyes 
Are given us and as they are we sec ; 
Some this thing, and some that; no two agree 
On what is foolish nor on what is wise. 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

And Harold was of sunshine, plundering life 

As humming-birds nasturtiums. God made the rose 

To gladden man: why should we stick a knife 

Into its heart to question how it blows? 

Did Hamlet profit more than FalstafT? Bah! 

Both lived and died beneath the same pole-star. 



XI 

Long, idle days beneath a sky of brass; 

Long, idle nights beneath the tropic stars; 

Sounds of green breakers on the coral bars; 

GUmpses of islands clothed with living grass: 

Days of the spindrift, when reefed sails sheeted home. 

With hatches hammered down and scuppers filled. 

Fighting her helmsman, taciturn and skilled. 

The ship plunged shrieking through the smothering foam. 

And through the days he sweated with the crew, 

Jesting and swearing, till the time for rest; 

Hearing strange chantries, old but ever new. 

Sung by the children of the ocean's breast, 

Who, with wind-wrinkled eyes, scanned fearlessly 

The level stretches of the trackless sea. 



XII 

Thus to the island with the palm-trees waving. 
Onward he voyaged, heedless of the goal; 
Past buoyed channels where the waters shoal 
To the cleanly beaches of the ocean's laving. 
There, where the sea was ever, ever singing 

6 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

To the slim brown people, children of the day, 
Careless he sauntered, smiling at their play, 
Watching sharp-eyed sea-birds high above them winging: 
Greeting all adventures nor asking of their end; 
Forming strange half-friendships, drinking in the air, 
Seeing Olu's maiden at the beach's bend 
Rinsing Olu's raiment, letting down her hair. 
Living, till I found him sprawled across the sand, 
As strong men have lived ever in an alien land. 



XIII 

Thank God for mercies! for the curtains hung 
About the places hallowed by our pain; 
For shrouding mists and sight-effacing rain. 
Thrice damned this earth, if to the world were flung 
Wide open, doors of temples; if souls o'er-thrown 
By infinite despair were stuff for prying eyes 
To classify, dissect, probe, analyze 
And ticket like a rare reptilian bone. 
We should hold draperies in reverence, 
Nor Hft the kerchief from a dead man's face; 
They who have greatly suffered and gone hence 
May well demand such measure of our grace: 
They came from shadows — tasted of life's pain — 
And to the shadows have returned again. 



IN A FOREST CLEARING 

Heine, the wise old singer, 

Seeker of Gods who fled, 
Swore that they hid in caverns, 

Slumbered, but were not dead. 

I in a forest 
Coming from mass, 
Saw forms dancing 
On the cool grass. 

Pink-nailed their feet 
Tripped in the dew: 
Their hair bore oak-leaves, 
Their breasts the rue. 

Narcissus had loved them, 
Adonis, grown kind, 
Hercules hastened 
Aquila to bind. 

Was Heine, the sad, sweet singer, 

Lover of days gone by, 
Tricked in his songs and his singing 

By the perilous Lorelei ? 

Their fine-spun kirtles 
Tempted the breeze, 
In a moment's daring, 
To kiss their knees. 

The tall trees murmured 
Never a word; 
8 



IN A FOREST CLEARING 

No chaffinch told 
The humming bird. 

Pure and fragrant 
As liUes white, 
Dancing slowly 
They passed from sight. 

Did Heine, the singer of strange songs, 
Who lived while the church bells rang, 

Sing, till the beings of oldtimes. 
Wakened to hear what he sang? 



BERGSON 



TO BERGSON 

Bergsonl free spirits hail thee from afar: 
Torch-bearer midst a doubt-begotten gloom 
That would trick man to grasp the hideous doom 

Of nothingness with joy. To thee no bar 

Cuts off the harbor: Uke the still north-star 
Thy mind shines steadfast, beaconing the way 
To weaker souls, who snared by the " eternal nay " 

Fall mazed, as Phaeton from out Apollo's car. 

Thou hast seen something of the cosmic plan; 
Extended the cathedral of Kant's thought. 
Affirming the unseen; scourged with a rod 

Determinism ; and, proclaimed the soul of man 
Not the arena, wherein the battle's fought, 
But the strong gladiator — co-laboring with God. 



13 



BERGSONIAN 

Why, " a bare bodkin,'' or a jet of gas, 

Unlighted, and our souls were freed 
Of the rough meshes of the dkty net 

Wherein they bleed. 

Then soothing peace I Surcease of agony: 
Healing of bruises of the jagged rocks 

Of doubt's dilemmas, faith's antinomies, 
And sickening shocks. 

Yet we delay the doing. It is not 

We fear, like the fat Dane, that we may leap 
Into conditions worse than those that now 

Murder our sleep: 

But, that we play the coward, and by death 
Prove traitors. For the world is but half-made. 

And man, to finish it, must fight the fight — 
Live undismayed. 

The golden vision that men dream — that God 
Predestined — cannot come to pass unless 

Man wills it so. A mystery that baffles thought — 
Defeats man's guess. 



14 



'CREATIVE EVOLUTION 

Existence is to me 
Challenge to plunge in life; 
Immersion into strife; 
A call to do and dare, 
To, in my might, declare 
That order yet shall be. 

Who knows why he hath breath — 
The meaning of the whole — 
The stature of the soul? 
Why God, since he is good, 
And fashions as he would. 
Lets evil stalk the earth? 

Choose, if thou wilt, a creed, 
But forward the great plan 
In which a part hath man: 
Shirk! And the plan may be 
Ungained — eternity 
A cripple for its need. 

Men's acts, like steel on wood, 
Grave hues naught can erase, 
Nor God himself efface: 
The pattern at the end 
Doth on our deeds depend, 
Then make the pattern good! 



15 



CHRISTMAS: 1916 



CHRISTMAS: 1916 

(Etchings) 



Kyrie eleison ," 

Mounts the cry of anguished souls. 
From the depths of the bower ed tropics 

To the white plains of the poles. 

Unending and unceasing; 

Wrenched from the world's despair; 
Like the smoke of a burning mountain 

Rolls up the ancient prayer. 



19 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

II 

Blood-stained and still, the pudgy priest 
Is stretched, where once the grain 

Rippled its sweet green finery 
Expectant of the rain. 

Ten yards beyond, a shell-torn boy 

Curses the priest's delay ; 
While o'er the field, unmoved, untouched, 

The mighty cannons play. 



20 



CHRISTMAS: 1916 

III 

Up! and out I and across the strip 

That separates foe from foe: 
Up! and out! with a yell and a shout 

The gaunt-faced fighters go: 
Led by a stripHng from the ships, 
With a song in his heart and a jest on his lips, 
Over the field to the battered trench — 
Over the field where the dead men lie 
With their filmed eyes gazing at the sky. 

" Oh damn the Germans and damn the French 
And damn the English who never blench! 
Ho! club your rifles 

And use their butts, 
And jab your bayonets 
Into their guts! " 
Swirls of smoke and jets of fire, 
Corpses ever piled up higher, 
Chests that heave and Hmbs that strain, 
Blinded eyes and stabs of pain, 
Gleaming steel and leaden hail 
And one flag flying in the gale. 

" Oh whoa! you fellows: the trench is won! 
And a damned good sporting job you've done: 
But the big guns' hits 

Knocked the ditch to bits^ 
So stow the grin 
And dig yourselves in. 
Oh damn the Germans and damn the French 
And damn the English who never blench! " 



21 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

IV 

Six ships running across the sea, 
As full of shrapnel as ships can be: 
Six days dodging of submarines 
And sweating over the might-have-beens: 
Six days getting to men who give 
Their lives that honor still may live: 
And six men who in an office sit 
Counting the cash they get for it. 



22 



CHRISTMAS: 1916 

V 

Blue sky and ten thousand stars, 
Hedged fields and evening hymn, 

And the evil planet, red-eyed Mars, 
Below the horizon's rim. 

Grey shapes that sail in the air, 

Red bombs and cots ablaze : 
Women and children, blown to bits, 
To the sound of a people's praise. 



23 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

VI 

** Christe eleison ," 



Mounts the cry of anguished soulSf 
From the depths of the bowered tropics 
To the white plains of the poles. 

Unending and unceasing; 

Wrenched from the world's despair; 
Like the smoke of a burning mountain 

Rolls up the ancient prayer. 



24 



CHRISTMAS: 1916 

VII 

Mother I I write these lines, for it may be that I, 

After to-night, shall never write again: 

They say we charge to-morrow, at the dawn — 

The dawns in France are very beautiful — 

Well — if I die, it will not matter much: 

You ever saw through mothers' eyes and laid 

Over my dull metal, broad sheets of gold 

From out the stores of your great treasury of love. 

So, do not cry. I do not grudge my life. 

What better usage could I make of it 

Than cast it, as a woman casteth jewels, 

Upon my country's altar? Time ever moves 

A stream, majestic, towards its far-off goal; 

'Tis only we, foam-flecks upon its breast 

Dream it knows turmoil; or whinny Uke to mares 

Robbed of their foals, because we are absorbed 

Before we have grown tired of the light, 

Into its darker depths. Dear! God still lives; 

And noble faiths, refulgent as God's self, 

Live on with him. Visions of right and faith, 

Now lonely flowers in a wilderness 

Of weeds, making the world a garden: high hopes 

Of brotherhood: emergence of broad streams 

Of human joyousness: of simple rights, 

Not guarded by long trains of cannonry. 

But like fair Kings, enshrined within the hearts 

Of all their peoples, by the peoples' love: 

Laughter of children — — " 



25 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

VIII 

Oh, of old they offered her rosemai*y 

And silk veils for her head : 
But now they offer her unbleached sheets 

And wet clay for a bed. 

They will lay her down with her face to the north, 

The red cross on her arm, 
And a priest will mumble a hurried mass 

To guard her soul from harm: 

And some of the men will pray and some, 

Unfearing men and strong. 
Will figure the price that must be paid 

By those who did the wrong. 



26 



CHRISTMAS: 1916 

IX 

Oh, hops? Yes, he knew hops — damned little more! 

For all his forty years, before this war 

He never stretched his legs outside of Kent. 

Hops need much watching! so like a mole he spent 

His life in his own burrows, training hops 

To grow up sticks. His prayers were for his crops. 

If he made prayers at all. Ten months each year 

He sweated, that the taverns might sell beer 

Of which he bought one pot each night, himself. 

To make him dream of — hops! The heaped-up wealth 

Of India, had not dragged him from the fields 

Before the fruit the giant green vine yields, 

Was safe within the oasts. Itahan skies; 

Fair women wearing silken draperies ; 

Soaring cathedrals; statues, gleaming white 

'Midst cypress trees upon a moon-ht night; 

The song of poets ; music, bridging space — 

He had not heard of: but his face 

Would brighten somewhat if one mentioned hops. 

Or chestnuts, pollarded, to grow their props. 

God, a dull oaf! And now, beneath a sun 

That kisses grapes, not hops, his drab life done, 

From all his stupid, hop-made caies released. 

He spreads for kites and crows a dubious feast. 

Yet, as I five, I heard him as he fought 

For breath, and with his short-nailed, coarse hands 

caught 
At the brown stubble in his pain, mutter of faith 
Kept to the death ; and of a shining wraith 

27 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

That men call English honor; of a light, 
Born in Arthurian times, which by its might 
Would break fair highways for a later breed 
Of nobler men. Good God I queer words indeed, 
For one whose life was dedicate to hops I " 



28 



CHRISTMAS: 1916 



Within the crater, where dead men, in rows, 
Lay Uke sardines, against each other pressed, 

A calm-eyed Tommy smoked his short-stemmed clay, 
And spread his breakfast on a dead man's chest. 

Green skins and breakfast tea! My stomach retched, 
And in a trench, abandoned on my right, 

I sought a moment's respite from the filth, 
The lust and fury of the helhsh fight. 

Would God, I had not gone! from out the trench's clay 
A corpse, from its waist up, protruded evilly. 

Naked, with blue veins raised upon white flesh — 
The blasting climax of indecency! 



29 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

XI 

" Kyrie eleison — ," 

Mounts the cry of anguished souls, 

From the depths of the towered tropics 

To the white plains of the poles. 

Unending and unceasing; 

Wrenched from the world's despair; 
Like the smoke of a burning mountain 

Rolls up the ancient prayer. 



30 



SUMMER SONG 

Oh, youth is the time for loving, they say, 
Oh, youth is the time, says the poet; 

And Tennyson's throstle whistles clear, 
" I know it, I know it, I know it! " 

Oh, youth is past, but I still can climb 
The hill where the windflowers quiver; 

My heart is as young and my love as fresh 
As it was by the rush-edged river, — 

As it was by the rush-edged river, the day 
When we saw the kingfisher fishing; 

And a solemn-eyed pike swam slowly by 
For a chub or a minnow wishinsr. 

All life is the time for loving, I say, 
No matter the song of the poet; 

And Tennyson's throstle whistles clear, 
" I know it, I know it, I know it! " 



31 



SONG 

Come with me away, love, 
Somewhere there is heather; 

Let us leave the dusty streets, 
Leave this gloomy weather. 

What's the use of living, love, 
Where they talk of money? 

Better far the scent of hay 
And the taste of honey. 

I will find for breakfast, love, 

Eggs laid by the plover ; 
And when stars announce the night 

Make your bed of clover. 

Let us go together, love. 
Flowers are upspringing; 

** Life was made for lovers," love, 
All the birds are singing. 



32 



PICTURES 



THE DUNE: OGUNQUIT, MAINE 

(On a Picture by Mary Butler) 

Tufted with ragged wire grass, the dune 
Reigns like a monarch on the level sand 

Where rocks have crumbled and the long low waves 
Creep in upon the land. 

Beneath its feet the yellow sands are wet 

And gullied into shallow pools; far out the sea 

Heaves its pale turquoise bosom while soft clouds veil 
The sky's immensity. 

Vastness and peace enwrap the soul about, 
Soothing its weariness, as in the desert way 

A silken vesture soothes the heat-wracked limbs 
Of one who toiled all day. 



35 



SLEEP 

(On Clara T. MacChesney's Picture ''Sleep ") 

Before the languor of thy sleep-closed eyes, 
The pathos of thy passive weariness, 
Man is compelled to pause — he may not guess 

What longings fill thy bosom, nor surmise 

If to thy vast fatigue are added miseries 
Of toil for bread. Sleep, like a sentinel 
Who guards the chamber where a king doth dwell 

From prying eyes, guards thy soul's subtleties. 

Inscrutable as Egypt's ancient Sphinx; 

Unfathomable as Mona Lisa's smile; 
Priestess of that sweet sacrifice that links 

Creation in a whole — sleep on, awhile — 
Beyond the gloom stars shine, and silent keep 
Watch o'er thy baby whilst thou art asleep. 



36 



BANKRUPT 

Dear, I am bankrupt I I cannot take 
The gift you offer me. I am not one 
Who, having feasted, deems his duty done 

If thanks be mumbled; nor, who would slake 

His thirst with draughts of generous wine and make 
Return in water from a roadside pool, 
Fouled with dead leaves and dust. He were a fool 

To play for gold who hath not gold to stake. 

I would my heart, of love's royal currency. 
Had half the store it held before the eyes 
Of Cressids made me spendthrift. Go hence : 

I am not worthy of your constancy — 
Being but ashes — and, ailas, too wise 
To take your sovereigns for my tarnished pence. 



37 



DIRGE 

Ring the bell! 

For the green waves cover 

The body of him 

Who was her lover. 

Human lovers 
Bring sailors death: 
Human kisses 
Still their breath: 
For the sea is greedy, 
She will not share 
The bodies of those 
Who held her fair. 

Ring the belli 

For the green waves cover 

The body of him 

Who was her lover. 



38 



AWAKE! 

I, who love peace, 
Fling wide the door: 

Bidding men arm 
And march to war. 

These are the crimes 
That sear like flame, 

Confessed, upheld — 
A nation's shame! 

Children murdered, 
Dishonor crowned. 

Fair countries raped, 
Free peoples bound. 

I, who held love 

Supremest law, 
Cry from the heights — 

March forth to war! 



39 



TO PHYLLIS 

I do not ask a lock of hair, 

Nor crave the glove upon thy hand; 
Wish not the rose thy bosom fair 

Hath with its heavings softly fanned : 
Such things be sweet, but that heart cramped and small 
That knowing thee desireth less than all. 



40 



TO PHYLLIS IN MAY TIME 

The birds are courting on the bough 

While daisies grow beneath; 
May not a lass a kiss allow, 
To him who brings a wreath? 

Were he too bold, if he should say 
That ripe, red lips can pain allay? 

The grey-gowned doves have sought out mates; 

The bee, the clover's heart; 
Why wilt thou not unbar thy gates 
And ease thy lover's smart? 

Sure 'twere no sin if thou shouldst guess 
The unput question, answering *' Yes." 



41 



THE SPIRIT OF WINE 

Ripened by sunshine, 

Unharmed by the rain, 
The vats in the autumn 

Are red with my stain : 
Begetter of laughter. 

Mother of joy, 
Youth to the greybeard, 

Strength to the boy, 
A symbol to mystics, 

Sin to the priest, 
Honored by princes, 

Lord of the feast; 
Courage to lovers, 

Healer of strife. 
Answer incarnate 

To the riddle of life. 



42 



MAGDALENE 

What do I know of this soul of mine — 

What of my fair body I 
Is the crimson vine of the autumn days 

Less than the girdled tree? 

Can my soul escape as a bird doth fly, 

From out my body's mesh; 
Or sing a song to another soul 

Save through my fragrant flesh? 

Are they twain or one — I do not know 
But the kisses that purchased dole 

Were not the flames of my body's fire, 
But blossoms of my soul. 



43 



AVE ECCLESIASTICA! 

Oh the Bishop's cross it has two bars 
And the Pope's cross it has three; 

But the cross of Christ it had but one 
And he died on it for me. 



44 



LAGGARD 

She stood upon a rocky steep-browed hill; 

She did not know that I was there to see; 
Snow-flurries whirled against her half-bared breast, 
And the wind blew fitfully. 

I saw her raise her arms, as one who pleads: 

I do not know to whom she prayed or why: 
Surely, a woman must have suffered much 
To pray to such a sky. 

I think her hair was Hke Austrahan gold — 

The hght was all behind her — and she seemed 
Fair as the daughter of a Northern king 
Of whom some poet dreamed. 

Then, as the twilight wholly faded out 

I chmbed the hill — Ah! but I cHmbed too late: 
Only the wind was loitering on the hill 
Mist-crowned and desolate. 



45 



EN ROUTE 



EN ROUTE 

I 

SETTING OUT 

When I was young, it seemed, each day the sun 

Shone in a cloudless sky. Life's road ran straight 

Made of clean gravel. Each golden day ere done 

Should witness miles devoured — see progress won. 

How clean the gravel was : nor dirt nor weed 

Found lodgment on its surface. None had need 

To tarry. The road was clear: let all men run I 

So light the task, so certain was the goal, 

So clean the flower-fringed road I lightly trod, 

I saw no snares to trap my eager soul 

Singing upon its journey unto God: 

Each day, I heard the music of the streams; 

Each night. Heaven's lutists played to me in dreams. 



49 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

II 

IN THE VALLEY 

White violets gave place to holly-hocks; 

Frail hare-bells to the crimson-bosomed rose; 

Windflowers to harlot poppies, which disclose 

Their chaliced sweets e'er any lover knocks: 

And blowzy girls went by with lads in smocks, 

And silk-gowned maids rode by with perfumed knights, 

To spacious castles, all ablaze with lights — 

All doors stood open: none had need of locks I 

So was I snared and caught as in a net: 

So I blasphemed and drank the perfumed wine, 

While harpers played, and luscious fruits were set 

Upon the board, where kings were wont to dine: 

And they who set the board were fair; and I 

Feared naught, except the saying, " All men diel " 



50 



EN ROUTE 

III 

THE RISE OF THE HILL 

The road is stony and runs up a hill; 

No flowers are there and both my feet are bruised; 

So rough a way must be but rarely used; 

The wind blows through me and I am a-chill: 

Yet I, despite my pain, dare not stand still 

Because behind me, I am feared there stands 

A flag-decked castle, set in flowered lands, 

Where once I stayed and feasted to my fill — 

Where once I think I held a face I saw 

Within it, as so beautiful that it 

Would serve me, in some sense, as 'twere a door 

Unto the place where God's fair angels sit. 

Clouds dip to meet me: I may not pause nor rest 

Till I have passed the rough hiU's distant crest. 



51 



WILLIAMSPORT POEMS 



IN WILLIAMSPORT 

''After reading Grantchester " 

In'Williamsport I fain would be 
Where Kfe is lived delightfully; 
Where men have time to breathe the air, 
Beside the river running free 
To reach the Chesapeake and sea, 
And keep their little gardens fair. 
I will get back to Williamsport, 
Where men are men of better sort 
Than those, who laboring are but slaves 
To labor till they reach their graves; 
Where men are such that they would die 
If God shut off the cloud-flecked sky. 

In Williamsport, as you've heard say 
They toil the better for their play ; 
There's many a shop and many a mill, 
Drab railroad cars there get their fill 
Of things they make and things they sell, 
(And aU they make is made quite well). 
But, as for me — 'tis this I want: 
To chmb the hills of VeJlamont; 
To smell the pines upon the breeze, 
To see the newly budded trees 
When Springtime sprinkles in the grass 
Blue violets where'er I pass; 
And birds are twittering and cheeping. 
Gathering straw for their housekeeping. 
Then skimming shadows shift and change 
Upon the long Bald Eagle range, 

55 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

Whose hills, where white pines grew afore, 

Run all the way to Jersey Shore 

In ordered rows, Uke workmen's shacks, 

Their sharp-edged crests hke bisons' backs. 

And farther down there is a gap 

Between the slopes of lower hills, 

Whereon grow young trees full of sap, 

Through which a merry white stream spills 

Its water into pools, and wise 

Old trout lie hid and watch for flies. 

And on beyond the gap, a ridge. 

Straight as a river-spanning bridge. 

Or that which led to Wotan's hall 

Before the fire devoured all — 

And sometimes, too, on cloudy days. 

The ridge is caught within the haze. 

Till whether ridge or cloud it be 

No man can say with certadnty. 

New York in summer time is hot. 
Whether a man doth work or not; 
But, oh, in Williamsport, at eve. 
The air is always sweet to breathe ; 
And every night the breeze comes stealing 
From the mountains for our heahng. 
I would that I might go to-morrow, 
Free from care as free from sorrow, 
Up the Loyalsock that sings 
Full fifty miles before it flings, 
Where the tall trees sway and quiver, 
Its Hmpid water in the river — 
56 



IN WILLIAMSPORT 

I would that I this day might stand, 
With creel on hip and rod in hand, 
Above the dam, beyond the park, 
With naught to do till it grew dark; 
Oh, then through fields of corn and wheat 
I'd saunter on on willing feet, 
Past farms and cabins till I came 
Abreast of Farragut, and there 
I'd find the Red Rocks, rearing bare 
Above the water, still the same 
As on the day I saw a-fishing, 
A tall blue-heron, greatly wishing 
That the bass would swim in shore. 
Oh, I remember how that day, 
When shadows lengthening, slanted more, 
And two striped chipmunks ceased to play, 
How down I walked to Big Rocks pool — 
Slowly eddying, dark and cool — 
How I stripped me to my skin. 
Caught my breath and waded in; 
Dove into the shadowed pool — 
Slowly eddying, dark and cool — 
Shook the water from my hair. 
Saw the great rocks, grey and bare. 
Turned upon my back and lay 
Like a child worn out by play; 
Without motion, wondering why 
Nothing moved, not even I. 
How there I floated till I caught 
Sight of the moon above the trees, 
When six strong strokes my body brought 
57 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

Back to the shore, where, in the breeze, 
I shivered till I quickly dressed. 
From my pouch tobacco pressed 
In my pipe, set it afire. 
Blew sweet smoke into the air. 
And, feeling cleansed of every care, 
While the pale moon climbed up higher 
Tramped for home across the fields. 

While in New York, a man may eat 

At Moquin's, or in Bleecker street; 

In Boston, those who oft have dined 

At Parker's, swear it is refined ; 

And Kugler's, in the Quaker City, 

Is good, but high-priced, more's the pity ; 

And men, whose hnen's chaste and cleanly, 

Assure me, Pittsburgh's best's the Schenley 

But, oh, in Williamsport, I know 

Of places where I'd rather go; 

Where one may drop into a chair 

And feel he's sure of welcome there ; 

Of clubs, where one may talk at ease 

Over the coffee and the cheese; 

Where one may drink deep draughts of ale 

And hear a jest, or tell a tale. 

What men soever built the road 
Up Lycoming creek, have showed 
That if men do just as they ought. 
Instead of as by text-books taught. 
The things they build will pleasure give 
To men who after them shall live. 
58 



IN WILLIAMSPORT 

Oh, never a road more good to see, 
It turns and twists entrancingly ; 
Crosses the creek each mile or two, 
Then crosses back as if it knew 
That it is sweet to cross swift water, 
Filled with jollity and laughter; 
Sweet to see swift water scurry 
Under the bridges in a hurry; 
Sweet to cross the lazy reaches, 
Shadowed by the rocks and trees, 
Firs and hemlocks, pines and beeches. 
Forming a gigantic frieze 
'Neath the ceihng of the sky 
Where the clouds, Uke sea-gulls, fly. 
And it is good in days of May 
When we with chilly days have done, 
When dogwood blooms, and in the sun 
The robin swells in self-esteem. 
Or trills his careless roundelay; 
To fish Trout Run or Pleasant Stream, 
Or Gray's, or Hoagland's, as may hap 
The dice to fall from Fortune's lap ; 
And whether you cast a fly, or drown 
The humble worm, or red or brown, 
Why trout are trout, and trout will fight 
No matter on what lure they bite. 

Oh, these are the chains that bind me fast 
To the city set amidst the hills ; 
Golden chains whose strength shaU last 
While water gossips in the riUs ; 
59 



THE MODERN COMEDY 

Streams and mountains, trees and flowers, 

Scented winds and sunlit hours, 

Men and women staunch and true, 

Gardens sparkhng with the dew ; 

Men and women scorning lies, 

Evening calms and morning skies; 

Men and women who have heard 

Sigh of pine tree, song of bird ; 

Who have loved the well-tilled valleys, 

Who have walked through pine tree alleys. 

Who have watched the water leaping, 

Watched the water slowly creeping ; 

Heard the whippoorwill's sad crying. 

Heard the swish of owls a-flying. 

And the katydids at night; 

Who have drunk, in their own right, 

From a chahce overflowing. 

Deep of beauty, past all knowing. 



60 



IN MEMORIAM 

(Seth T, McCormick, August 6, 1916) 

He did not steer his course to capture fame; 

Nor warp his creeds to suit the pubUc whim : 
The broad-striped tunic and the crowd's acclaim 

Were infamy to him 

Unless they came, as flowers crown a vine, 
Just tribute to a life Uved in the light; 

And full of perfume, Uke a golden wine 
Grown mellow with Time's flight. 

He hated shams; but loved true men the more; 

Gave them as gifts, more precious than much gold, 
A living friendship, clean, rock-ribbed and sure, 

And kindness manifold. 

In royal sunsets, ships from harbors sail, 
Out, and far out, their canvas all ablaze 

With magic colors, that too quickly pale 
The while we stand and gaze: 

So he passed out into uncharted space, 

Still captain of his soul's integrity: 
Leaving to us, for heritage, the grace 

Of his rich memory. 



61 



IN MEMORIAM 

(Patrick M. Malloy, November 29, 1915) 

When the Mad Dean, who was of your own race, 
Sat down to write the comments of the town 
On his own death, his skilled pen ran apace 
To tell how fleeting should be his renown. 
Ah! but he lied: his fame abates no jot, 
The world still gladly pays to him his due ; 
And that, he hoped, that one who knew him not, 
Should say of him, we too, can say of you : 

" He never courted men in station, 
Of no man's greatness was afraid. 
Because he sought for no man's aid. 
Without regarding private ends, 
Spent all his credit for his friends; 
But power was never in his thought 
And wealth he valued not a groat." 

We who have clasped your hands in happy days 
Shall miss you when we gather round the board ; 
And though we go our old familiar ways, 
Our feasts will strike a little lower chord : 
We shall hold dearer those two men you loved, 
Patrick, the saint, and Burns, of golden tongue. 
Who made the world confess, they stand approved 
Who to the world have manhood's challenge flung. 

God guard thy soul — for us, ahve to keep 
The shamrock where thy body Kes asleep. 



62 



"GO FORTH" 

(To Battery D, upon its departure from Williamsporty 
August 30th, 1917) 

Go forth! Go forth: and if our tightened throats 
Should be betrayed by over-brimming eyes, 

Bear not within your breasts the memory 
Of these our frailties: 

But bear abroad the memory of the pride, 

Flooding our souls — too deep for spoken word — 

That when the menace loomed and tocsin pealed 
You answered — " We have heard." 

Go forth! So shall the monster that hath made 
A shambles of the lands where flowers bloomed 

And vineyards bore their fruit for peaceful men, 
Be to destruction doomed. 

Go forth! The winds that bridge the wide-spread seas 
Shall bring you tidings of the love we be£u* : 

Champions of hberty, go forth, go forth! 
God have you in his care! 



63 



TO 

Grant me to hear the low, clear sound 
Of thy dear voice when I He dying; 
Since I in thee have refuge found 
Grant me to hear the low, clear sound 
Whose golden bands have held me bound ; - - 

Above the night-wind's mournful sighing 
Grant me to hear the low, clear sound 
Of thy dear voice when I lie dying. 

Thus would I put me out to sea 

Within mine ears thy dear voice sounding ; 
Unfearful of the stern decree, 
Thus would I put me out to sea 
For harbors that uncharted be; — 

Unfearful of the great waves' pounding, 
Thus would I put me out to sea 

Within mine ears thy dear voice sounding. 



64 



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